


Perigee

by battle_cat



Series: Together [59]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Car Sex, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cunnilingus, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Max Comes Back, Porn with Feelings, Reunion Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Smut, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-23 19:29:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7476900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/battle_cat/pseuds/battle_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Max came back to the Citadel and one time he stayed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Fifty-one days after the cries of Dag’s newborn drive him from the stone halls, Max comes back, unshaven and filthy. He hunches in on himself when he sees her. As if she might turn him away. As if it wasn’t already far too late for that.

His shoulders drop when she leans their foreheads together, a sudden rough exhale of breath warm across her face. She twines her fingers into his gritty hair and whispers, “Welcome back.”

His hand is on her wrist and her heart is pounding. She breathes deep and his scent overwhelms her, and she suddenly doesn’t care that it’s made strong by days of sweat and sun and not much washing. It’s Max, and she _wants._

She turns on her heel and marches out of the garage with as much dignity as she can muster, achingly aware of him following close behind her.

They make it almost all the way to her room. And then, in the empty corridor leading to her doorway, his hand brushes idly against her hip and that’s it, she’s gone, whirling around to pin him against the wall, biting his lips that taste like salt and dust and _him,_ her body grinding against him until he's breathing hard.

They manage to break apart long enough to stagger into her room, and when she turns to bolt the door his hands are on her shoulders, her waist, the tips of his fingers digging under her belt to find flushed skin, his mouth on the back of her neck sucking hard and wet just below her hairline, his erection pressing against her ass through two layers of leather.

She spins around and pulls him tight against her until she’s pressed between the wall and his body, a fistful of his shirt in her hand, his mouth devouring every inch of skin he can reach: her lips, her neck, her chest, burrowing down to lick at the sweat between her breasts. She suddenly has no more patience for foreplay and is fumbling to unbuckle his pants, whimpering as his teeth scrape at her throat. He’s scrabbling for her belt as well, sliding the leather down over her ass to get both hands on her bare skin and squeeze, making her moan as the hot flesh of his cock presses against her lower belly.

Together they tug at her pants, grunting in frustration at sweaty skin and stubborn footwear, until she gets one boot and one pants leg off and that’s good enough for her to spread her legs and pull him back against her, smearing the head of his cock through the obscene amount of wetness between her thighs, hearing and feeling the deep rumbly noise in his chest as he leans forward and into her, relishing the delicious stretch of taking him inside her in one long, slow motion.

She hooks a leg around his hip, and then her arms around his neck, and then there’s a jolt and a ragged noise from both of them as he lifts her, high enough that she can wrap both legs tight around his waist, pants trailing still trapped around her right boot, as he holds her against the wall and fucks into her hard and fast and greedy. She can hear the unhinged noises they’re both making, his face buried against her neck and her head tipped back, open-mouthed and undone.

The iron grip of her thighs is doing enough to hold her up that he can get a hand between them, and she doesn’t care that his fingers are dirty, doesn’t care about anything but the hard bright shocks of pleasure he’s sending through her as he plays roughly with her clit. She wants to say his name but she can only gasp out broken syllables, and then she’s coming with a high wail, fingers digging hard into the back of his neck. She can feel him shuddering right behind her, a stutter in the rhythm of his hips and a raw noise that gets buried against her sweaty skin.

They don’t move for a dozen heaving breaths, wrapped tight around each other. Then she slowly uncurls, lets him ease her down onto shaking legs and slide his cock out of her gingerly. She can feel come sliding down her thighs, grit on her skin mixed in with both their sweat, feel the sting where her bare ass chafed against the rock wall, but it’s all background noise under a heavy wave of warmth and pleasure.

She tilts his face toward her so she can look at him, his expression stunned and hazy, his dirty hair even more a wild mess than when he arrived. “Hey,” she whispers with a smile.


	2. Chapter 2

She doesn’t notice something is wrong until she gets close to the car, rolling off the lift into the garage in the orange light of sunset. He’s behind the wheel, same as always, and he’s not wearing his jacket, which is odd, but it’s only when she approaches that she sees the pallor in his face and the hard clench of his jaw.

“Max?” Up close she can see his forehead is beaded with sweat, and— _oh_ —something clenches tight around her ribcage because the bottom of his shirt and the right hip of his pants are stained and clotted with dried blood. His jacket lies on the passenger seat, blood caked all along the bottom seam on one side.

“You’re hurt.” She’s reaching for him as he stumbles his way out of the car, wincing as he stands up. There’s more blood on his back.

“’S…‘s a scratch,” he mumbles, right before he nearly falls over.

Her reflexes are quick enough to catch him, but he’s too heavy for her to hold up on her own. “Help!” she yells reflexively. The closest body is Zia, the milker-turned-blackthumb who’d been working on the nearest vehicle. Her belly is still soft and round but her arms are banded with muscle now. With the help of her broad shoulders they lean Max against the car.

His teeth are gritted and he’s breathing through his nose, trying not to throw up or pass out or both. She can see where the wound must be—his bloody shirt is stuck to it—but not the extent of the damage.

_He’s alive,_ she tells herself as her heart pounds. _He made it this far._

“Need to get him to my room.”

“Infirmary’s closer,” Zia says. Max shakes his head violently.

“My room.”

There are War Boys around them now, hovering and waiting for a command. Someone mutters “Witness,” under their breath. Max grunts out something she can’t understand.

“What?”

“Back seat,” she hears clearly this time.

That’s when she looks in the back seat of the car and sees the dark-haired slip of a girl. Of fucking course.

She is crammed in the far corner of the back seat, silent and still as stone, her legs drawn up against her chest and her eyes huge and terrified. She looks maybe five thousand days old, but she’s so thin and small it’s difficult to tell.

“Zia, show her where to eat and wash.” It’s not the first stray he’s brought back, and it probably won’t be the last, but she has other concerns right now.

Max sways. She wrangles a couple War Boys to help carry him, ignoring his grumbled protests. Behind her she hears Zia coaxing the girl out of the car, hears a small, awed voice whisper, “You’re so _big._ ”

 

By the time they reach her room, someone has run for Janey and she’s there with medical supplies. Together they cut off Max’s shirt—he protests again, and again she ignores him—to reveal the oozing slice in his side the length of a hand.

The wound has been stitched closed, but badly. (She wonders if he did it, or if the girl did.) He seems to have lost a lot of blood, but—“Could be worse,” Janey mutters.

“‘S what I said,” Max mumbles, his face pressed into the mattress.

Somehow Furiosa finds herself sitting with Max’s head in her lap as Janey cuts open the mediocre stitching, disinfects the wound and stitches it back up while Max bites down whimpers of pain. Her flesh fingers are stroking through Max’s hair, and she thinks it’s more for her comfort than his, but he lets her keep doing it. His eyes are glassy and his face is still pale, but his breathing seems to have relaxed a little.

Janey wraps clean bandages around his stomach and then comes back with a cup of the tea she brews that numbs pain and helps sleep. “Don’t want him waking up from a nightmare and pulling his stitches open.” After Furiosa carefully sets the tea on the floor Janey hands her a millet cake and a bit of bean paste wrapped in a cloth. “Eat something, dear. He’ll be all right.”

And then they’re alone. Max is lying on his side, his head resting on her thigh, and she’s been stroking the same soft rhythmic motions into his hair for what feels like hours, although she knows it must have only been minutes. His hand reaches out and lands on her knee, a gentle squeeze. A jagged, gasping sigh comes out of her.

“Mm,” he grunts. “M’okay. ‘V had worse.”

“I know.”

She takes a deep breath, forcing the hitching in her chest to be still before she says, “Should drink your tea.”

She helps him sit up, slow and wincing, trying not to disturb the wound. He grimaces at the taste of the bitter broth, but drinks it down in a few swallows.

Now that he’s sitting up it’s easier for his hand to reach her face, stroking softly over her cheek, her lips. She kisses his thumb, lets her forehead rest against his for a long moment, letting the feeling of his even breath tickling her face steady her.

“Should sleep,” she murmurs finally.

When he eases back down he curls right into the same position, his head in her lap, the herbs already making his movements loose and slow. His hand is back on her knee, and she doesn’t want to disturb him, so she just unstraps her arm and places it carefully on the floor next to the food she hasn’t eaten and sits up against the wall, fully clothed and stroking his hair.

Max sleeps. The light in the room is growing dim, but there’s still enough to make out the planes of his face, his unshaven cheeks, the way his hair sticks up in the back. She sits there for a long time looking down at him, unguarded in sleep, wondering just how on earth she got so wrapped up in his gravity.

_Sometimes a planet orbits a star, or a moon orbits a planet._ The snippet of a lesson comes back to her, the memory of a steady old voice as she lay in a warm pile of blankets between her mother and her other Mothers looking up at the night sky long ago. _But sometimes if two stars are very close together, then end up orbiting each other._

 

She wakes what seems like no time later, except the room is fully dark, she has a crick in her neck and Max is whimpering in his sleep. His hand suddenly clutches hard against her leg.

“Max.” He can wake up swinging whether she intervenes or not, but she can’t listen to the tiny hurt noises he’s making a second longer. She settles for a touch on his hand, hoping it won’t jar him too badly.

His eyes fly open, wide and terrified in the dark. “It’s okay,” she soothes, smudging sweat off his brow with her thumb while he slowly brings his breathing back down to normal. His nightmares had been stronger than the tea after all.

He makes a pleading noise and tugs at her leg. “You want me to lie down?” she finally works out. He nods against her thigh.

“Okay. I’m going to change my clothes.”

She slides carefully out of bed, stretching her sore neck and shoulders before peeling her day clothes off and slipping into the thin shorts and top she sleeps in. She drinks a cup of water from the pitcher by the door and then brings one back for Max, which he sips carefully sitting up on one elbow.

When she slides back into bed he wraps around her, his chest against her back and an arm around her ribs. He presses his face against the back of her neck and lets out a long sigh.

He sleeps through the rest of the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter inspired by [YoukaiYume's smutty art](http://youkaiyume.tumblr.com/post/147496634828/filthy-smut-warning-a-prompt-i-drew-for-a-smut).

She wakes up the morning of Max’s projected return humming with anticipation. He’d gone on a simple scouting mission, low-profile reconnaissance on a new settlement that had popped up to the northwest. Eight days out and back. For once she knows when he’ll be back and she finds herself pleasantly warm at the thought.

Warm…and wet. She allows herself a quick orgasm, imagining the hand between her legs is his, before she pulls herself together to wash and dress and go down to breakfast.

All day she waits for the call from a sentry that will signal his car on the horizon. When she can barely focus on the midday council meeting she excuses herself to the garage. Sliding underneath the belly of a salvaged ute doesn’t completely distract her from the low-burning heat between her legs, but at least no one can see her squirm.

The sun sets and Max does not arrive.

The tension pinging around inside her starts to flicker toward something else, just the barest sharp sliver of worry. He should have been back by now.

A few hours is nothing, she tells herself. He had to detour. The route was not as clear as they’d thought. Unreasonable to worry over just a few hours.

When the garage grows dark enough that she has to pause to light a lamp, she realizes her fingers are shaking. It’s nothing, she tells herself as she forces her concentration back to her work. He’s fine. He’s fine.

It’s past midnight when the night sentry shouts for her. She has time to wash the worst of the grease off her hands while the lift goes clattering down and comes back up, bringing him already stepping out of his car, dusty but perfectly intact.

He makes a small startled noise when her arms wrap tight around him, foregoing the forehead touch and pressing their bodies close together. Her flesh hand runs under his jacket, fingers digging into the solid muscle of his back. She buries her face against his neck and breathes in the familiar mix of sweat and salt and leather, exhales with a shaky sigh.

“You’re late,” she mumbles into the collar of his jacket.

“Mm. Minor distraction.” His hands are stroking over her back, melting away the tension she hadn’t realized she had been holding there. “Gonna need some more land mines.”

“Fool.” She brushes her nose against his, then leans in to kiss him. Is it just her imagination, or are his hands and face cleaner than when he usually arrives?

The kisses quickly grow deeper as he pulls her tightly against him. “I was worried.” She doesn’t mean to say it out loud, but the hushed confession somehow escapes her lips. Gods, what has he done to her?

He pulls back to look at her, his hands cupping her face, his expression inscrutable. She finds she can’t meet his gaze. “M’sorry,” he mutters. He pulls her back into a kiss, and soon his mouth is tracing slow and hot and electric down her throat. The fear is gone, desire roaring back in its place, her breath going rough and ragged. His hand slides down to cup her ass.

“Just gonna…have to make it up to me,” she sighs as he sucks and nips at her neck. His hand on her bum squeezes, reminding her just how strong and skilled his fingers are when he puts them to good use.

“Garage is empty.” His teeth scrape just under her jaw. “Could, ah, service you right here.”

The idea sends a spike of heat through her. A tiny moan escapes her lips. 

“Mm. Take you apart. Get you lubed up proper,” he growls between nips at her earlobe. “Get yer engine purrin’.” The hand not on her ass squeezes against the back of her neck, twanging something deep and primal inside her, a rush of wetness between her legs.

“In the Rig,” she finds herself gasping, feels his low noise of satisfaction vibrate against her skin.

As soon as they climb into the cab he is on his knees, sucking kisses into the skin of her belly while he unbuckles her pants. She rocks her hips up for him to pull the leather down, moans when he nuzzles into her pubic hair.

Her fingers drift down to her clit while he’s busy tugging her boots off. He pushes her hand away with a grunt. “No touching,” he mutters as he slides her pants all the way off. “My job.”

“Is it now— _ahh_ —” She breaks off with a gasp as he licks straight into her, spreading her legs wide, his mouth buried against her pussy. He hums as his tongue grinds against her clit, and her hips buck, sliding to the edge of the seat to give him more of her, all of her. Her hips move without her instructions, grinding against his face, and it seems to spur him on as he licks and sucks and works his tongue against her. Her metal hand clenches on the seat back, her flesh one in his hair, her bottom lip clenched between her teeth to contain the sounds that want to come out of her.

She’s barreling straight toward an orgasm in what seems like no time at all, and he sucks her through it, and then he keeps going, building her up until she comes again, steady hands holding her open when she wants to curl up around the shuddering waves of pleasure, drawing it out longer than she thought possible, until she has to let go of his hair to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep from making enough noise that someone comes to investigate.

She’s shivery and raw after the second one, her clit sensitive enough that she has to hook a foot against his chest and push him away. There’s a satisfied little _smirk_ on his wet lips and it hits her like a shot of nitro. 

She urges him up onto the seat and unbuckles his pants, getting her own juices smeared everywhere as his kisses land anywhere on her skin he can reach. He groans when she wraps a hand around his hard cock, groans louder when she straddles his lap and smears wetness all over him. His hands slide to her ass, rocking her in the rhythm he wants.

“No touching, eh?” She wraps metal and flesh fingers around his wrists and pins them above his head. He grunts out a rueful noise, but his eyes are shining, pupils wide and gaze locked on her face. His mouth and chin are still covered with her slick.

She licks his face clean while she grinds with long devastating strokes, until he’s whimpering and twitching his hips against her, and then she takes him inside her, rocking slowly on his cock while she holds his hands above his head. He goes so still, his gaze awed and trusting, and it feels _so good,_ the sweat and the closeness and the shifting pressure of his cock inside her; she lets her eyes drift closed and her forehead rest against his until she hears his breath go ragged, feels his hips stutter and twitch underneath her and the hot spill of come inside her.

She lets his hands go and they come to rest on her waist as they both lie still, catching their breath.

She doesn’t want to move. Eventually she slides his sticky cock out of her, tugs his pants a little further down to avoid the mess. Some time later she unbuckles her arm, peeling off metal and leather so she can be one layer closer to him, breathing slow and easy with her half-arm draped over his shoulder and her face tucked against his neck.


	4. Chapter 4

Furiosa is leaning out of the cab of the Rig when the shot rings out. One second she’s waving to Eves and Ace on the descending lift, and the next there’s a crack and a spray of blood and screams all around them.

Toast grabs the rifle on the passenger-side dash, already hearing Eves’s bullets snap against the stone behind her. She whips the barrel into place just in time to see a rag-clad figure scoot off a narrow ledge three meters above their position and disappear into the crowd of scattering Groundlings.

There is yelling everywhere and the lift crashes into position and they’re moving forward, Toast still scanning the crowd for the sniper, and then with a jerk the lift starts rising, faster than she knew it could move.

Ace and Eves are running, clambering up the Rig on Furiosa’s side, and above them are pounding feet and cries of, “Boss? Boss!” Furiosa groans, her flesh hand clamped awkwardly over the wound in her right shoulder.

“Here, here.” At least Toast can pull the scarf off her neck and use it to stanch the blood. Her hands are shaking as she presses it over the wound.

Everything is chaos: Ace bellowing orders to who knows who, War Boys leaning in the window and the sunroof, Eves swearing “Motherless cur!” and a host of other insults Toast has never heard before. Toast is the only one close enough to hear Furiosa mutter, “Exit wound.” She leans forward a little and the seat behind her is painted with blood.

Toast loops the scarf under Furiosa’s armpit to press against the bloody hole in her back. “Harder,” Furiosa grits, and Toast presses the heel of her palm against the wound, feeling blood soaking hot through the fabric. The noise of the garage sounds very close above them.

In the garage every hand seems to reach for them, but Furiosa shoves open the door and stumbles down on her own before anyone can stop her. She can’t help accepting a shoulder to lean on from Ace when she sways, though.

Toast is still in the cab, and the scene on the ground below her seems very far away.

Eves is wrapping Toast’s scarf tight around Furiosa’s shoulder and muttering something that sounds like “through and through,” to which Furiosa nods. War Boys press in until Ace bellows at them to back off. Furiosa is somehow still on her feet, her steps unsteady as they head for the infirmary.

Toast is still frozen in the cab of the Rig. There’s blood on the driver’s seat and a hole in the leather.

 

Toast still has blood on her hands when she climbs to the highest promontory and loads the flares into the long-range launcher. She fires them high over the Wasteland, the code they had agreed upon.

She has no idea if he’ll even be in range to see them.

By nightfall his car is there.

 

Furiosa wakes to the sound of low voices in the darkened infirmary. Her shoulder aches with a dull throb that reaches into the nerves of her whole arm, but it would be a fiery sun without the herbs Janey gave her.

“…sleepin’,” she hears Janey’s insistent voice.

“…blood?” And she almost sits up at that before pain stops her, because that’s Max’s voice.

“Max?” Her voice comes out cracked and far weaker than she expected.

He’s by her side in an instant, kneeling beside the cot, Janey following with a dim lantern. His hands are shakier and his gaze more skittish than she’s seen in a long time.

“Hey,” she says. Her arm is in a sling and she can’t move it much, but she gives his hand a squeeze, even though it makes the pain flicker hot and bright for a moment.

She can see his throat working, and he looks like he’s trying to say something, but finally he gives up and just wraps himself carefully around her, his hand on her elbow and his head resting against her solar plexus. She drapes her half-arm over the back of his neck, gritty with Wasteland dust, and feels him exhale a shaking breath.

“I’ll pull up another cot,” Janey says.

 

The flimsy cots are not really made for shifting around on, or for lying in any position but on your back, but by morning he’s somehow worked his way over to the edge of his to rest his head on her uninjured shoulder.

 

She'll heal. Her whole arm needs a sling, and the swelling in the muscles across her chest and back makes wearing her arm for very long uncomfortable, but she is used to compensating.

Everyone seems more shaken by the attack than she is. It was just a matter of time. At least the smeg’s aim was rust—she’s pretty sure that bullet was intended for her head.

She’s never seen Max stay so close to her side. She leaves the infirmary the day after the attack without waiting for Janey to argue, and he trails after her. In her room he is constantly adjusting pillows, darting down to the kitchens for food or the infirmary for clean bandages and pain-numbing tea, making sure the cup of water beside the bed is full. 

She’s grateful for the help with easing out of her bloodied top and leathers, and into the loose tunic that leaves room for her bandages and the soft pair of pants that are normally Max’s night clothes in colder weather. But he is always so _close,_ and his eyes dart to her far too frequently, and he has a way of _hovering,_ swooping in to help her with a movement that might be difficult. It grates in a way his presence never has before. And the fact that he’s usually right about the moments that she needs help grates even more.

She’s been injured enough to know that sleep is the best medicine they have to offer, and she tries, she really does, to get as much of it as her body and mind will allow her. When she wakes up fitfully every few hours, he is always pressed against her.

A day and a half of bedrest is enough to drive her to distraction. On the afternoon of the second day Max wakes up to find her sitting on the bench, cleaning her revolver, moving the gun with her metal hand against the brush tucked into her flesh one inside the sling.

Max makes a disgruntled noise and gets out of bed. “Shouldn’t be—”

“It’s fine.”

“Still healin.’” He slides an arm around her waist, trying to nudge her back to bed.

“Max.” Her tone is enough to make him remove his arm. “I’ve been shot before. I know my limits.” She tries to keep the edge out of her voice, and very nearly succeeds.

“Mm. Right.” He’s behind her on the bench, so she can’t see what his expression looks like, and finds herself not willing to turn around. She goes back to cleaning her gun.

“More tea?”

“Don’t need it. Pain’s not so bad right now.” That is not exactly true, but the tea makes her thoughts slow and fuzzy in a way she doesn’t like. She’ll take pain and her wits about her any day.

“Hungry?”

She doesn’t know why it makes her grit her teeth. He’s trying to be caring, and he’s worried about her, but it’s not like she’s _fragile._

“No. But I could stand to get out of this room.” She stands up abruptly, dropping the gun on the workbench with a clatter. “Going up to the gardens.”

He makes a noise of protest, and when she moves he actually steps between her and the door.

Whatever look she has on her face makes him drop his eyes and mutter, “Sorry.” She’s at the door when he says, “D’you want—”

“No,” she snaps. She tugs the door open with her metal hand, and when she leaves the room he doesn’t follow.

 

She marches up to the gardens with such ferocity that she doesn’t register the dizziness until the last flight of stairs, when she has to stop abruptly on the landing and lean her forehead against the cool stone.

She breathes slowly in and out through her nose, biting her lip at the stab of pain that goes through her shoulder with each heartbeat. Her stomach roils, and she can’t tell whether it’s nausea or shame, for snapping at Max, Max who has never been anything but better than she deserved.

She presses her face into the stone until the strain in her neck muscles makes her wound twinge.

When she’s sure she can walk without passing out, she makes her way slowly up the last stairs into the blazing afternoon heat and sunlight. It’s the hottest part of the day, when all the greenthumbs retire for a nap, and the gardens are empty.

She works her way to the coolest, deepest shade she can find and sinks slowly down against a boulder. Her arm hurts and the sling feels like a trap and she should’ve brought water, but she does feel marginally less like crawling out of her skin in the open air. She leans back against the rock and closes her eyes.

 

She doesn’t really sleep, but she drifts, and when she’s fully alert again the light in the sky is dusky and there’s the sound of boots crunching on the path between the trees toward her. Then Max is there, a blanket over his arm and a canteen tucked against his jacket.

She looks up at him from her spot against the rock. His gaze flicks over to her, then away. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I shouldn’t’ve—ahh—you know what you’re doing.” He rubs the back of his neck.

“Shouldn’t’ve snapped at you,” she says. “You take good care of me.”

She nods her head to the empty spot against the rock next to her. After a moment he settles down by her side.

“Kept, ahh, thinking. ‘Bout…the first time. You were hurt. ‘N I left.” He mumbles it out while playing with a loose thread on the blanket, not meeting her gaze. “‘F…something’d happened to you then—”

He stops, but she understands, the same way she understands the dreams she has about the shotgun being loaded with live shells, about not being able to hold on and watching him go under the wheels of the Rig. To contemplate the delicate matrix of chance and luck and improbabilities that had clicked into place to bring them here, both alive and together, was utterly terrifying. As if just thinking about it too hard might shift something out of alignment and he’d be gone.

She hooks a metal finger delicately around the cloth of the sling and eases her arm out. His gaze flicks to her but he says nothing. She reaches over and takes his hand. “I’m here,” she says.

“Mm.” His gaze drops to their interlocked hands. It’s getting dark, but she thinks she sees a tiny tug of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Could sleep out here,” he says after a long moment of silence. “Brought a blanket.”

“I’d like that.”

She unbuckles her arm, and he helps her slide it off her shoulder and lay it carefully down in the grass next to them. She lets him help her ease her arm back into the sling and settle back against the rock so she can sit between his legs, leaning against his chest. He pulls the blanket over them. An arm wraps warm around her waist underneath it, his fingers brushing hers.

“This feels familiar,” she murmurs as she lets herself relax against his chest.

“Don’t go getting any ideas.” She can feel the rumble of his voice against her back. “Already told you my name.”


	5. Chapter 5

It’s early morning when she wakes to the sound of the key turning in the lock on her door. She still can’t quell the tiny spike of adrenaline at the sound—maybe she’ll never be able to—but she doesn’t scramble up like she used to. There is only one person other than her who has a key, and she knows it’s him the second his slightly uneven steps cross the threshold.

She stays where she is, lying face-down with her whole arm tucked underneath the pillow, listening to him close the door and slide the bar quietly over it. He’s moving with the utmost care, as if he’s not sure whether he’s woken her or not. She lies still and watches him through half-closed lids.

He moves about the room with an easy familiarity, placing his pack gently on the floor, easing out of his jacket and hanging it on a hook by the door, unwrapping the sand-caked black scarf carefully from around his neck and leaving it folded neatly on top of his pack. He sits on the small stool by the water basin to unstrap his brace. He tugs off his boots there, too, and then stands and strips out of the rest of his clothes, leaving them in a dusty pile on the floor.

She can’t help enjoying how the muscles in his back and ass move as he goes to the water pitcher and scrubs his face and hands, then runs the cloth over the rest of his skin, swiping away the worst of the dried sweat and desert grit.

She pretends to be asleep when he slides into the bed, but she can feel an engine start up somewhere low inside her, just from his closeness.

“Hey,” she murmurs when his arm drapes across her back. “You’re early.” She hadn’t expected him until midday at least.

“Mm,” his voice rumbles low. “Might’ve…driven a bit fast.”

“Something urgent?” She starts to turn around—if there were danger coming, certainly he would have woken her up straightaway?—but he snuggles up against her, his arm curling around her ribcage.

“Nothing, ahh, pressing.” His hips tuck against her, and she can feel his half-hard cock nudge against her ass through her shorts.

“Mm- _hmm,_ ” she says as his lips press against the back of her neck, tucking away the little secret flush of joy at the thought of him aching to get back to her.

He’s kissing the back of her neck, her shoulder, the spot behind her ear, and she moves to turn around and get her lips on his, but he makes a little hum and nudges her back onto her side, facing away from him. She feels him shift slightly behind her and then his mouth is under the hollow of her jaw, sucking hard and steady enough to leave a mark, and a little shiver goes through her at the thought of letting him bend over her exposed throat like this. She likes it; she trusts him to touch her in all kinds of ways she never expected, and she likes that she trusts him.

His hand is running over her back, her side, her belly in long sweeping strokes, firm and steady and _so slow;_ his mouth drifts back to nibble at her earlobe as his hand slides up to cup her breast, kneading, the tips of his fingers digging in a little. He can be so careful, attuned to every twitch of her body. But she likes that he’s not gentle, not when they’re like this, tangled up and dizzy with remembering each other. He’s not gentle but he is _slow,_ maddeningly deliberate with where he puts his mouth, his hands. His breath is warm against her neck.

She loves letting him rev her up, feeling herself go breathless and pliant with want under his hands. He can make her go completely to pieces with teasing when he wants to, but what’s happening now feels less like a game and more unguarded, as much about his needs as hers. She likes that too.

His fingers tug at the hem of her top, sliding it up, and she wriggles out of it obligingly, sighing when a rough calloused thumb brushes over her hard nipple. Her shorts are next, peeled down and tossed aside before he nudges her onto her stomach.

His hands slide over her back, as if he wants to memorize every inch of her skin, and then his mouth is pressing hot between her shoulderblades. His kisses trail down her spine, a hand running ahead of them to knead at her buttock. By the time his mouth reaches the small of her back her breath is ragged.

He shifts again on the bed and then he’s sucking a hard, wet kiss where her ass meets her thigh. She moans. She’s already slick; she can feel the wetness sliding between her thighs, and she opens her legs a little wider, an invitation. She feels his stubble scratch against her thigh, can hear the inhale as he breathes in her scent, but he doesn’t touch her, leaving her wanting as he slides up and nudges her onto her side.

She’s kissing him, finally, his breath hot and rough, his mouth tasting like salt and dust, and the hand that’s not curled around the base of her skull is still stroking achingly slowly over her breast and side and hip.

Finally she grunts in frustration, hooks a leg over his hip, catches his hand and puts it where she wants it. “Get on with it, fool,” she breathes. She feels his smile curl against her lips before the very tips of his fingers slide between her wet lips.

She doesn’t mean to moan quite so loudly when his slick fingers brush over her clit, but she does, and he huffs out a little hum that’s all fondness and delight, and he does it again before his fingers slide deep inside her. The rock of her hips is insistent enough that he hardly has to move his hand, but he presses her open so her clit grinds against his palm while his fingers curl inside her, and gods that feels _delicious;_ she can feel the wetness she’s smearing all over his hand as her hips twitch harder, then she’s coming with a long moan and a hand fisted into his hair.

It’s one of those orgasms that just makes her want more of him, want him closer against her, and she’s barely stopped twitching when she’s tugging at his waist to get him on top of her. His eyes are very bright, and that little smile keeps creeping onto his face, the one he hides from her more often than not.

She doesn’t let him linger, takes him inside her and wraps her legs tight around his waist. He is still not gentle, and she doesn’t want him to be, she likes the hard thrusts that jolt something deep inside her, but there’s something so vulnerable about the way he buries his face against her neck and the jagged little sound he makes when he comes.

He lies still, heavy and sweaty and grounding on top of her. She can feel his heartbeat against her sternum, his panting breath against her neck. He makes a low grunt of pure satisfaction that vibrates against her collarbone. She runs her fingers through his hair. “Welcome home,” she says.


	6. Chapter 6

They are sitting around the fire pit on top of the terraces, the night sky velvet above them and the desert silver-white in the light of the full moon. On nights like these, the Wasteland is almost beautiful.

Eves darns socks, leaning against Janey’s shoulder while the other woman whittles a bone down to surgical sharpness. Toast is cleaning a gun, chewing her ever-present toothpick. Capable is braiding Cheedo’s hair while baby Angharad toddles the handful of steps back and forth between Cheedo and Dag’s waiting arms, a look of preternatural concentration on her chubby face.

(Dag, of course, had thought nothing of naming her golden-haired girl child after the recently dead. Those for whom the name still catches in the throat call her Daglet.)

Furiosa is sitting between Max’s legs, her back against his chest as he leans against the rock wall behind them. There’s a blanket spread over their laps, his fingers laced between hers underneath it.

(They’d fucked in half the hidden corners of the Citadel long before she’d been able to so much as hold his hand in public, casually, in a moment when neither of them was bleeding out or having a panic attack. Too much time spent in a world where public displays meant ownership, or too much fear in admitting whatever they had was more than battle camaraderie and mutual physical satisfaction, or probably a little of both.)

His body is warm against her back, and the steady rise and fall of his breath is grounding, and her belly is full of roasted millet and vegetables and a hearty swig from the flask Janey had sent around the circle, and for a few moments it’s nice to be calm and sated and think of nothing.

Angharad toddles away from her prescribed path. Dag steers her back in the right direction before she can get too close to the fire, clicking her tongue in annoyance.

“Gonna be a wanderer,” she mutters as the baby wobbles toward Cheedo again. “Like her uncle,” she adds, her sharp chin jutting in Max’s direction.

He makes the kind of huff that sounds annoyed but actually means he’s pleased.

“Not so wandery lately,” Toast says with a lascivious wink in their direction. “Been Citadel-side what now, two hundred days?” She looks to Furiosa for confirmation. 

With a jolt, Furiosa realizes that she’s stopped counting.

She had counted for thousands of days. First as a prisoner, marking time. Later each day was a hard-won victory clawed from the destruction of the siege and the disarray left by men who’d hoarded information like they’d hoarded bullets, fuel, water, women. Another day of surviving, even if it sometimes felt no easier than before.

She’d counted the days of his stays and the days of his absences, tried to guard her hope closely as the former waxed and the latter waned.

The conversation has moved on when Max says, so quietly that she might be the only one to hear, “Two hundred and four.”

“Fool,” she mutters, wiggling down a little so she can tuck her head against his shoulder to hide her smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://fuckyeahisawthat.tumblr.com)!


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